Betty Oleson, Administrative Director of the CTO, is excited to see her staff grow and develop, saying, “these recent certifications are another indication of the competency and expertise we provide cancer patients and investigators. I am very proud of their accomplishments, and of all staff supporting clinical cancer research at MCW."

What’s unique about these most recent certifications is that the preparation and review course and SoCRA certification exam were held here, at MCW.

Paulette Jacobs MS, CCRP is a Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) with the Cancer Center CTO, and she helped organize the course and exam. She explains, “when we formed the Clinical Trials Office, I knew that a lot of my colleagues had worked the number of years required to become certified, but had not yet taken the exam. If we hosted the exam here, they would not have pay to travel and spend the night somewhere. So I contacted SoCRA. They told me if we had at least 10 people participating that we could volunteer to host the exam, and if we had 20 people participate, we could also host the review course.”

In addition to the participants from MCW, other registrants for the course and exam included clinical research professionals from the Harvard School of Public Health, National Marrow Donor Program, GE Healthcare, BloodCenter of Wisconsin, Standard Process, Inc. (Palmyra, WI), the University of Minnesota, Terumo Medical Corporation (NJ), Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, University of Pittsburgh, and Aurora Health Care.

The course included a review of FDA guidelines and International Conference on Harmonisation/Good Clinical Practice Guidelines. The exam was developed to create an internationally-accepted standard of knowledge, education, and experience for clinical research professionals.

Michelle Martin, a CRC in the Pediatric Clinical Trials Office, recently talked about the role of the Clinical Research Coordinator and the importance of certification. "We’d like people to understand that being a CRC is a profession – we have professional societies, we can become certified, there are degree programs for CRCs. It’s an important job."

Jen Brown, manager of pediatric clinical research, is interested in coordinating another on-site exam, which requires a minimum of 10 participants. If you are interested in pursuing SoCRA certification, please send her an email, or call (414) 266-8941.

Congratulations on a successful event and to everyone who participated in the course and exam.